from the after-putting-them-through-hell dept

For a few years now, we've covered the rather insane lawsuit filed by Daily Variety (owned by Reed Elsevier) against the band, The Vandals because of an old version of an album cover that parodies Daily Variety's logo. Years ago, when the band originally planned this album, it was threatened by Variety and changed the logo to the one at the bottom:

I still don't fully understand why they agreed to change the logo, since they had a strong argument, but who wants to fight in court if you can avoid it? Either way, years later, versions of the original album cover appeared in various places online -- but not on the Vandals' own site. Variety still blamed them for this and sued the band. The band's bassist, Joe Escalante, who was an entertainment lawyer -- but not a litigator -- actually handled the case entirely on his own. He got himself admitted to practice law in Delaware, where the case was filed, and convinced the court there to transfer the case to LA where it belonged.

Now, just as the actual trial was set to begin, Escalante is saying that Variety has agreed to drop the case in a "settlement" that doesn't involve the band paying anything. The Hollywood Reporter has been following the story, and seems to enjoy tweaking its main competitor Variety. Escalante seems relieved that the whole ordeal is over:

"This was the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and to the band, and the hardest thing I've ever done," says Escalante, who represented The Vandals himself. "However, as my wife says, the crash course in federal court litigation made me a better lawyer."

For what it's worth, Escalante recently had me on his radio show, where we got to talk about SOPA, copyright and a variety of other issues concerning how IP laws can be abused -- things that Escalante has taken a much deeper interest in lately.

from the pick-your-battles dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how publishing giant Reed Elsevier had decided to sue the band The Vandals, for supposedly violating a previous agreement not to use an album logo that parodied Reed's publication, Daily Variety:

While the band had agreed not to use the logo, images with the logo were being found on various websites, but it was other sites using it, not the band promoting it itself. Furthermore, it's clearly a parody, which should be legal (though it's complicated by the band's agreement to stop using the logo, so the contractual issues take precedence over the trademark/parody questions). What's amazing is that after all the negative attention being put on Reed over such a ridiculously minor issue, the company refuses to back down and is still pushing forward with the case. It's difficult to see why this makes sense in any way. Reed is a publishing giant. It hardly needs to win this lawsuit, and it's got nothing to do with protecting its trademark any more. Besides, this lawsuit has done a hell of a lot more to promote the old logo than anything that happened before.

Where this gets even more interesting (or potentially dangerous, depending on your opinion), is that the band's bassist, Joe Escalante, is a former entertainment lawyer who is representing the band in the case. Despite not being a litigator, he's been learning about litigation and even got himself admitted to practice law in Delaware, where the lawsuit was filed (the band is trying to get the case moved to LA). Escalante has been publicizing all of the aspects of the case, and the band is even holding a "fundraising" concert to fund the legal defense.